Back in January I reported on business forecaster IHS’ “cautiously upbeat outlook” for 2013. This prediction of growth for the world economy seems to be echoed by the composites industry.
In a recent survey on the Reinforced Plastics LinkedIn Group around 80% of those replying said that they expect 2013 to be better for their business than 2012. A visit to the ACMA’s COMPOSITES 2013 trade show in Florida at the end of January confirmed that the North American composites market is bouncing back and, according to market analyst Lucintel, it should reach pre-recession levels in 2014. In March the industry will gather in Paris for the JEC show, where we will get an even better idea of how the market is progressing.
Many companies choose JEC to highlight their latest developments, and launch new products. A glance through our show preview shows a healthy number of innovations and product enhancements. Materials offering improved performance, and technologies and products to enable easier processing and reduce cost of manufacture look like key themes.
The technology of publishing is also changing, with the proliferation of digital publications, websites and social networking sites resulting in a whole range of new communication channels. Last year we conducted a reader survey to see what you need from Reinforced Plastics, and a big thank you to all those of you who took the time to complete this.
It seems that, on the whole, we are doing a good job in terms of providing the information you require in the format you want, but this year we will be introducing some new features in response to your feedback. Some of these will be included in our March/April issue. These include video content, more comment, and a review of recent research articles. We also received a large number of suggestions for topics for articles, and these will help us shape our editorial programme for this year and beyond.
As always, we welcome your feedback on our content and services. Please feel free to contact me directly, or via any of our social media sites.
Amanda Jacob is the Editor of Reinforced Plastics magazine.
